Smirky columnist Jonah Goldberg's latest column in National Review Online is virtually worthless as a source of information, but it does provide good insight into the relationship of the modern conservative punditariat to the environment and the environmental movement. In the end, they feel obliged to say they care about the environment, but it doesn't particularly interest them, and as long as someone, anyone will reassure them that everything is peachy, that's enough. And of course, if there's one thing modern conservatives have in spades, it is an embarrassment of media sources devoted to telling them what they want to hear.
Goldberg uses the occasion of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment to riff on what is the core modern conservative position on the environment, namely: The rest of the world is polluted, because they are poor and socialist, but the U.S. and Europe are doing just fine, because they are rich and capitalist. There's a germ of truth in this, of course, but what Goldberg is utterly insensate toward is the basic fact that pollution, global warming, and overfishing do not respect national borders. Wait, he believes in that stuff, right?
And let's be fair, unlike the situation in America and Europe, there are some enormous environmental problems in the world. Even if you're a global-warming skeptic, there's no disputing that such problems as overfishing are real.
Sigh.
More slogging under the break.
